The Trusted Advisor
David H Maister
Charles H Green
Robert M Galford
2000, The Free Press
What’s New?
The terms “trust” and “advisor” are emingly small words, but they have meanings with layers and complexities.
The trust formula of credibility, reliability, intimacy and lf-orientation provides a neat summary for the benefits and application of effective inter-personal skills.
Perspectives on Trust
3 basic skills that a Trusted Advisor needs:
Trust
- Earning
Relationships
- Building
- Giving Advice Effectively
Why strive to be a Trusted Advisor?
The more your clients trust you, the more they will:
•Reach for your advice
•Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
•Bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues
•Share more information that helps you to help them, and improves the quality of rvices •Lower the level of stress in your interactions
•Give you the benefit of the doubt
•Forgive you when you make a mistake
•Protect you when you need it
•Warn you of the dangers you might avoid
•Involve you early on when their issues begin to form, rather than later in the process Trusted Advisors share the following characteristics from a client perspective:
•Are consistent, we can depend on them
•Don’t try to force things on us
•Help us think things through (it’s our decision)
•
Don’t substitute their judgement for ours •
Help us think and parate our logic from our emotion •
Don’t pull their punches (we can rely on them to tell us the truth) •
Give us reasoning (help us think) not just their conclusions •
Challenge our assumptions (help us uncover the fal assumptions we’ve been working under) •
Make us feel comfortable and casual personally (but they take the issues riously) •
Act like a real person, not someone in a role •
Are reliably on our side and always em to have our interests at heart •
Have a n of humour to diffu (our) tension in tough situations
If you want your client to treat you as a Trusted Advisor, then you must meet as many of the “tests” on the list as possible.
B r e a d t h o f B u s i n e s s I s s u e s
B r e a d t h o f B u s i n e s s I s s u e s
Ten Attributes of Trusted Advisors
1.Have a predilection to focus on the client, rather than themlves. They have:
- enough lf confidence to listen without pre-judging
- enough curiosity to inquire without supposing an answer
- willingness to e the clients co-equal in a joint journey
- enough ego strength to subordinate their own ego
2.Focus on the client as an individual, not as a person fulling a role
3.Believe that a continued focus on problem definition and resolution is more important
than technical or content mastery
4.Show a strong “competitive” drive aimed not at competitors, but constantly at finding new
ways to be of greater rvice to the client
5.Consistently focus on doing the next right thing, rather than on aiming for specific
outcomes
6.Are motivated more by an internalid drive to do the right thing than by their own
organisation’s rewards or dynamics
7.View methodologies, models, techniques and business process as means to an end.
They are uful if they work, and are to be discarded if they don’t, the test as
effectiveness for this client
8.Believe that success in client relationships is tied to the accumulation of quality
experiences. As a result, they ek out (rather than avoid) client-contact experiences,
and take personal risks with clients rather than avoid them
9.Believe that both lling and rving are aspects of professionalism. Both are about
providing to clients that you are dedicated to helping them with their issues
10.Believe that there is a distinction between a business life and a private life, but that both
lives are very personal. They recogni that refined skills in dealing with people are
critical in business and personal life; the two worlds are often work alike that they are
different, and for some, they overlap to an extraordinary event
Giving Advice
Many professionals approach the task of giving advice as if it were an objective, rational exerci bad on their technical knowledge and experti. But advice giving is almost never an exclusively logical process. Rather it is almost always an emotional “duet” played between the advice giver and the client. If you can’t learn to recogni, deal with, and respond to client emotions, you will never be an effective advisor.
It’s not enough for a professional to be right: An advisor’s job is to be helpful.
Clients frequently want someone who will take away their worries and absorb all their hassles. Too often they encounter professionals who add to their worries and create extra headaches, forcing them to confront things they would rather ignore.
Since clients are often anxious and uncertain they are, above all, looking for someone who will provide reassurance, calm their fears and inspire confidence.
Dealing with client politics – effective advice requires an ability to suppress one’s own ego and emotional needs. The most effective way to influence a client is to help the person feel that the solution was (to a large extent) their idea:
1.Give them their options
2.Give them an education about the options (including enough discussion for them to
consider each option in depth)
3.Give them a recommendation
4.Let them choo
Building Relationships
Key principles of relationship building:
1.Go first – the person you are influencing must visibly perceive that you are willing to be
the first one to make an investment in the relationship, in order to earn and derve the
relationship
2.Illustrate, don’t tell – be very prepared and demonstrate convincingly
3.Listen for what’s different, not for what’s familiar – as you talk to clients, ask yourlf what
makes this person different from other clients. What does that mean for what I should
say and how I should behave? Create situations where they will tell you more about their issues, concerns and needs
4.Be sure your advice is being sought – develop the skills and behaviour patterns that
ensure that you provide affirmation, support, approval and appreciation along with your
advice – learn to hold back from saying “I know how to solve your problem”
5.Earn the right to offer advice – understand the situation, understand how the client feels
about it, convince the client that we understand the situation and how they feel about it
6.Keep asking – ask a lot of questions, shut up and listen
7.Say what you mean – never assume that the other person is a mind reader
8.When you need help, ask for it – anyone who tries to appear omnipotent, an individual
with all the answers, is more likely to evoke precily the opposite respon (“Who is this guy trying to kid?”). Giving advice is a duet, not a solo performance
9.Show an interest in the person – keep them talking about themlves, learn as much as
possible about the person
10.U compliments, not flattery – be specific enough to make sure the compliment is not
puffery
11.Show appreciation – expressing appropriate appreciation goes a long way in cementing a
relationship
The Structure of Trust Building
The Trust Equation
Winning trust requires that you do well on all four dimensions (in the client’s eyes). T = C + R + I
S
T = Trustworthiness
C = Credibility
R = Reliability
I = Intimacy
S = Self-Orientation
Why Professionals Jump to Action Too Soon
(Chapter 15)
1.The human tendency to focus on ourlves
2.The belief that we’re lling only content
3.The desire for tangibility
4.The arch for validation
Common Fears
(Chapter 15)
1.Not having the answer
2.Not being able to get the right answer quickly
3.Having the wrong answer
4.Committing some social faux pas
5.Looking confud
6.Not knowing how to respond
7.Having misd some information
8.Revealing some ignorance
9.Misdiagnosing
